The invention relates generally to electronic privilege cards, and more specifically to a method and system for delivering customized offers to users of electronic privilege cards. Electronic cards, in particular electronic cards that correspond to already issued non-electronic cards, are issued by a card issuing party (the card issuer) to a party to which the card issuer is granting a privilege. Such cards will be termed in the following privilege cards. Common examples of privilege cards include coupons, loyalty cards, gift cards, identification cards, credit or debit cards, membership cards, tickets, and licenses.
Electronic privilege cards (“eCards”) can provide significant convenience advantages to consumers over non-electronic privilege cards (“Cards”) such as easy accessibility and being more environmentally friendly than their paper and plastic counterparts. These eCards, including any associated barcodes, can be stored in an electronic version of a wallet and can be displayed on a device such as a mobile telephone that has access to the wallet. When displayed, eCards can be used with barcode readers in the same fashion as their physical counterparts.
Unlike prior art systems that either i) deliver a set of offers to mobile phone regardless of whether the phone stores an eCard, or ii) deliver identical offers to all mobile phone users, the invention describes a method of associating offers with specific privilege cards and delivering customized or unique offers to end users. Today, it is difficult and expensive for privilege card issuers to communicate with and deliver offers to their card holders outside of email and snail mail. General text alerts have also not caught on as consumers do not want spam and do not want to be inundated with text alerts.